A truly effective criminal justice system would be built on restitution, not imprisonment and punishment. Moreover, government-funded prisons have no incentive to rehabilitate prisons since they receive funding regardless of outcomes.

After quoting H.L. Mencken’s famous quip, “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people,” Andrews wonders, “I don’t know if old H.L. was a bookmaker, but he would have been a great one if he had been.”

If one is concerned about Briarwood’s new private police force, one also ought to be hysterical over pretty much any police force in the United States. But the state seems to get a pass in areas where non-state entities are treated with suspicion.

Among themselves, libertarians often see important dividing lines among various factions in terms of social views and lifestyles. But most on the outside define libertarianism as being overwhelmingly for one thing: excessive and "dogmatic" devotion to free markets.